Springfield Ward 9 Ald. STEVE DOVE, a member of the city council since 2007, is not seeking a third term.

“It’s always good to have new perspectives on things,” he said of the council. He’s not yet backing a successor.

Dove, 45, took a break from his aldermanic duties in the aftermath of Mayor TIM DAVLIN’S suicide death in late 2010. He became executive assistant to then-Mayor FRANK EDWARDS. After the April 2011 election, Edwards returned to his role as Ward 1 alderman, and Dove returned to his Ward 9 post.

Dove saw his father, Dr. JAMES DOVE, founder of Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants, honored as the 2010 State Journal-Register First Citizen. His father’s death less than a month later following a battle with cancer helped crystallize for Dove that he liked the hospital setting. He left real estate and is now a licensed practical nurse at Koke Mill Medical Center. He said he could be interested in becoming a registered nurse or going into health management.

Dove also took a shot at higher office, running for a time for the Republican nomination for a state Senate seat.

Dove tried a couple of times to get the council to go along with an anti-nepotism ordinance — which would have made applicants disclose if close relatives work for the city — without success, which he considers a disappointment.

On the positive side, he said, some new businesses and infrastructure improvements including sidewalk construction have come to Ward 9.

Dove also said it was interesting to work inside the mayor’s office, allowing him to see how much information is available there.

“At least we know what we’ve been missing” at the council level, he said.

Among people thinking about running in Ward 9 are TONY SMARJESSE, JIM DONELAN and BILL STOKES.

Smarjesse, 51, who is on the board overseeing the Prairie Capital Convention Center, temporarily replaced Dove on the city council when Dove was in the mayor’s office.

He’s an information systems analyst with the state’s Central Management Services department and is a Republican precinct committeeman.

Donelan, 42, votes in Democratic primaries. He was executive assistant to Davlin and is associate director of Township Officials of Illinois Risk Management Association. An aldermanic run is “something that I would consider,” he said.

Stokes, 61, has businesses involved in office equipment, magazine publishing and training programs for runners. He was race director of the first Springfield Marathon last fall.

He said he’s considering an aldermanic run, but is a Republican and wouldn’t seek the officially nonpartisan office without party backing.

Well-told stories

“Mom did me a terrific favor,” wrote the author of a new book I breezed through in less than a week. “She named me TAYLOR PENSONEAU, which turned out to be a memorable name for a byline at the head of a newspaper article.”

Page 2 of 3 - Pensoneau has had an interesting and diverse career, with much of it based in digging up facts and telling stories in a compelling way.

“Reporting on Life — and People Along the Way,” published by New Berlin resident Pensoneau’s own Downstate Publications, allows readers, through more than 300 pages, to share his journey and experiences.

The book is chock-full of names people in Illinois journalism and political worlds will know.

Pensoneau recalls how his high school journalism teacher, LILIAN JOSSEM, chose him to get a summer job at his hometown Belleville News-Democrat, and how that helped him ascend to a job at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which brought him to the Statehouse pressroom.

He described the “chaotic excitement without parallel” when it was discovered, following the death of Secretary of State PAUL POWELL in 1970, that the Vienna Democrat had squirreled away $800,000 in cash — some in one or more shoeboxes and valises at Springfield’s St. Nicholas Hotel, which is now an apartment building.

And while nobody ever found the source of all that money, Pensoneau relates how after Powell’s death, someone who worked for him led Pensoneau to a story about a fraudulent fundraising scheme that had benefited the campaign of Gov. RICHARD OGILVIE. Powell had hidden the scheme, and Ogilvie said he never knew of it.

“A good guess was that Democrat Powell believed the documents gave him ammunition to politically blackmail Republican Ogilvie in order to obtain a favor or concession,” Pensoneau wrote.

Pensoneau went from reporting to the Illinois Coal Association, and he discusses lobbying and supporting candidates, including a meeting in a Springfield motel room with then-U.S. Rep. ROD BLAGOJEVICH, who was running his successful first campaign for governor. The now-jailed Blagojevich talked about subjects including ELVIS PRESLEY, and directed Pensoneau to give the $10,000 in checks from the coal industry to sidekick CHRISTOPHER KELLY, who Blagojevich called “the person closest to me.” Kelly later got entangled in controversy and took his own life.

Such donations to a candidate for a major office were not unusual, Pensoneau said.

It was in 1991 when Pensoneau was on a trip to California that a friend asked him to write a guest column for local papers about former Illinois Gov. DAN WALKER, who was living in San Diego. Pensoneau tells of his bad decision to partake in a sailboat excursion that ended up making him initially miss his meeting with Walker, whom he had reported on in Illinois.

But the later meeting turned into an hours-long conversation. And that relationship led Walker to ask Pensoneau to help write a biography of the former governor.

Pensoneau’s co-authorship of a book on Walker led to biographies of others including Ogilvie and W. RUSSELL ARRINGTON, a Republican Senate majority leader. Pensoneau found a popular following writing “Brothers Notorius: The Sheltons,” about the family members he called “the kingpins of illegal activities in downstate Illinois from the Roaring Twenties through the late 1940s.” A novel and more nonfiction followed.

Page 3 of 3 - Pensoneau also uses the new book to relate details about the life and work of some people he knows and admires. They include MIKE LAWRENCE, who was a reporter working alongside Pensoneau in the Statehouse who later was press secretary to Gov. JIM EDGAR and director for a time of the PAUL SIMON Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. Another is ED POUND, who brought great investigative reporting skills from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Still another is JOE WILKINS, an Air Force special operations veteran of the Vietnam war.

Most touching in the book is Pensoneau’s recollections of his brother TERRY, who was a Marine killed in Vietnam in 1968.

“It’s not everyday that somebody idolizes a younger sibling, but I did,” Pensoneau wrote.

There is some antiquated language in the book by the youthful 73-year-old Pensoneau — you don’t hear “gumshoe” or “shamus” very often these days. And I will warn that I am briefly mentioned, as when he discusses my review of the Walker book.

Base price of the new book is $18.95 plus tax, and a book signing will be from 1-4 p.m. today, Sunday, at Capone’s Hideout, 201 W. Illinois St., New Berlin. Information is also at www.downstatepublications.com.